In recent years, the evaluation of pictures of cell cultures has been assuming ever greater significance not only in research but in routine examinations as well. In addition to exploring the cell growth of primary cultures (e.g., tumors), special attention is being given to examining the influence of outside effects on the growth and mobility of cell structures in such procedures as toxicity and mutagenicity tests, determining the compatibility of implant materials, and monitoring the effects of pharmaceuticals. Emphasis is also being placed upon the examination of cell cultures in preference to, or in order to dispense with, making toxicity tests on higher organisms, i.e., test animals.
In order to provide statistically relevant information for the various procedures referred to above, it is necessary to examine a large number of cells. In many cases, e.g., for mutagenicity examinations, it is important to analyze the mobility performance of cell groups and to even determine the exact "fate" of individual cells.
Since such cell cultures involve large numbers of cells, the visual observation of the movement and/or structural transformation of individual cells is an extremely difficult and time-consuming task.
Therefore, for many routine cell culture evaluation procedures, for instance where counts must be made of the total number of cells in a specific field, assistance is being provided by computers. In some instances, where there is no requirement for highly accurate evaluations, computers are even being employed for fully automatic picture analysis. However, known computer systems are unsuited for more demanding procedures such as the analysis of cell mobility or the determination of cell pedigrees (genealogical tables). For these more demanding procedures, interactive, computer-aided systems are better suited.
A summary of possible interactive and automated processes for analyzing the mobility of cell cultures is described in the book, Computer Assisted Analyses of Cell Locomotion and Chemotaxis, by P. B. Noble and M. D. Devine, published by CRC Press, Inc., Boca Raton, Florida.
The interactive computer processes described in that reference relate only to cell locomotion, with the evaluations being limited to a relatively few selected cells. Therefore, the computer-aided processes disclosed in that reference do not solve the needs to which the subject invention is directed, namely, gathering developmental history of cells in regard to such matters as cell division rate and/or the number of different generation sequences of a number of cells, such histories being large enough to be statistically significant.